UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Urges International Action to Protect Syrians

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, made a public statement urging the international community to take action to protect the Syrian population. She refers to the excessive use of force and killings by the Syrian government as constituting crimes against humanity and stresses that the ‘onus to take protective action’ now rests upon the international community. A finding of crimes against humanity is one of the four grounds for operationalization of the Responsibility to Protect, accepted by the international community in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (see paras. 138-39).